Much More Than Death
by iliketocolor
Summary: This is an ongoing fic about the interns of the Night Vale Community Radio Station. Each chapter is about a different intern. Basically, it's about the life before their untimely death.


If anyone had bothered to ask me if he wanted to be a Night Vale Radio Station intern, I would have said no. I mean, now, I enjoy being the afternoon board operator but I never would have chosen this for myself.

This would probably make more sense to start at the beginning, which, I think, was a year ago.

* * *

My little sister Julia and I had just gotten home from school. It was just me, her, and my dad since mom was taken for reeducation a couple years before. So I usually picked up Julia from the elementary school and then we'd hang out at home together. The last thing I remember was putting my backpack on the kitchen table and listening to Julia tell me a rumor she heard about some girl who says she can talk to the angels. Then I heard a high pitched whir surround me and there was a nothingness that rivaled the void that sits on Third Street. I closed my eyes as if not seeing would make whatever was happening stop.

When I opened my eyes I was inside a dusty gray and purple room that held dozens of boxes labeled only with first names and dates. A red light was blinking from under the door and I could hear a slightly familiar voice speaking with a cadence that almost seemed soothing. It kind of made me forget that I had once been standing in my kitchen with my little sister. It made me open the door and figure out what was going on.

As soon as I opened the door the red light went off. I was now standing in a larger room that looked almost like the community center's board room. There was a large table in the middle with papers scattered everywhere and chairs in no real order around the table. There were five closed doors that led into what I could only imagine was unknowable worlds. Then I focused and I could see Cecil Baldwin sitting behind a window in a small recording booth in the corner of the room. I looked back from where I came and the door said intern storage room. I didn't entirely understand what that meant at the time, it didn't matter then.

Cecil smiled at me and then another guy came out from one of the doors and went to Cecil with papers and coffee. I wasn't scared, but I didn't want to move. I'm still not sure if I even could move, but it makes me feel better to think that I was the one who decided I would not move.

After a minute of hushed talking from the booth, Cecil and the other person came over to me.

"Jerry Hartman, welcome," Cecil said. I remembered his voice so well. I have never been a big fan of radio shows but mom used to love Cecil's show. She said she went to school with Cecil and his voice had really grown into something lovely.

"Um. Right… thanks I guess… but how'd I get here?" I looked between the two of them but they didn't seem to have an answer.

"How do any of us get here really," Cecil replied. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath before walking away behind another door.

"Don't mind Cecil. He's always 'on' if you know what I mean." The other guy looked familiar but I couldn't figure it out. He looked around my age and I couldn't tell if I knew him.

"I'm Chad. I've been an intern for about a month I think. But who knows, time is funny that way… Anyway. You're an intern now, so congratulations."

"Wait, what? I never signed up for this." I knew protesting was useless. I remembered when I was suddenly on the school basketball team for a year. I don't know how I got on it, but I just was. Julia recently joined the baking club at school but I don't think she ever liked to bake before. So I guess you just end up doing things and going places in Night Vale that you never intended to do. I think sometimes it's like the town just knows what you need to be doing and puts you where you need to be.

"No one ever does. The interns just walk out of the storage room and that's the end of that."

"I don't get it… What do you mean that's the end of that?" I asked.

Chad sighed. "So many questions… Look, it's hard to explain. You'll be here for a while. Then you'll go home for a while. Then you'll show up back here and never go home again. This is the life of an intern."

I had a million more questions but I didn't think Chad would answer them.

"Just follow me. I'll take you to the intern break room and then the intern living room."

The intern break room was dark but nice. It had a kitchen stocked with more food than was back home and had a TV in the corner. A computer was in the other corner. A girl about my age was sitting on the couch in front of the TV watching a show I'd never seen before.

"This is the break room. The food is good and it just shows up. The TV has more channels than the rest of town is allowed to have and the computer has an archive of internet files from decades of government blocking and denial."

I stared at Chad. I had no idea what he meant.

"Basically, we get to know everything about this town. We have to know the truth so that we can know what to tell to citizens and how to tell them. You'll get used to things after a while." Chad pointed to the girl on the couch. "That's Emily. She's been an intern for a year and a half."

Chad showed me the Intern living room. It was a large space with beds and dressers and changing rooms. He explained how after a while, the interns just live here. There's no reason to be anywhere else once our families disappear.

"Hold up. My family is going to disappear?" I had just gotten used to not having my mom around. I could live without dad for a bit, he got on my nerves mostly. But losing Julia? I wasn't okay with that.

"I don't know. They kind of just move out of your house. You'll wake up one day and they just won't be there. That's when you'll suddenly end up here again."

* * *

It was three weeks later that everything Chad told me came true. Every day for three weeks after school, I would suddenly be transported to the radio station. Then at the end of the day, just when I thought I wasn't going to go home again, I'd end up in my bedroom, with Julia standing near the doorway.

My last night I tucked Julia in and told her she was wonderful, just like always and then went to bed hoping my teachers wouldn't yell at me for not doing the homework for the next day.

The next day came but I woke up to that empty house. I didn't end up at school that day. I was transported back to the station.

Over the next few weeks, my personal belongs began to appear one by one until I had all my things. There really was no reason to be anywhere else. Chad, Emily, and I were a pretty good intern team. We made sure there was always something on the air. If a host didn't turn up for their show, we made replacements quickly and station management could never tell.

I eventually took the position of afternoon board operator. Chad had the evening and Emily was the morning. It was a decent life that I hadn't known I was so suited for.

We spent all week preparing for Cecil's radio show every Sunday night. We had to gather the news and find out the news that needed to be told for the following week. It was kind of fun to be a semi-real journalist. But I particularly liked the Friday Night Techno-Void that always occurred no matter what else was happening. Recording booth three always disappeared into a void and all we heard on air was techno for four hours. We usually would party it up for a couple hours with city-council-approved dancing and wine coolers that Emily could get from a guy behind the Arby's. Station management usually disappeared from Thursdays until Saturdays so we interns ran the station more than anyone else.

* * *

I think it was three months after I had started my internship when I realized how short and futile life can really be. Emily and grown to be the sister I never had. She was smart and beautiful and funny. Three things you can't be unless city-council approves. She had gotten approval when she was seven with the condition that she never become mayor.

She would never even get the chance though. It was a Wednesday when she died. Well, we think she died. It only makes sense for her to be dead. She went out to look into a story for Cecil's show and never came back. Witnesses say she evaporated into the new fountain outside city hall. They say the water glistens with a slightly beige tint sometimes now. I like to think she merged with the water and will live forever in the fountain.

That was the day Chad told me what he'd known all along.

"The fate of an intern is written in stone," he said staring at the belongings that used to be Emily's.

"What?" I watched him slowly gather her things in a box exactly like the ones in the intern storage room.

"We all die… Well most of us. I've never known one to survive," he seemed to be in a trance and I didn't doubt that he very well could have been in one.

"Interns are here because we're all supposed to die before we become adults. Only a few actually survive to become radio show hosts."

"So did she know she was going to die today?"

"No. That's one of the things we're not allowed to know. Only the vague yet menacing government knows that information."

I followed him to the intern storage room where I'd first entered my new life and finally understood it was a very literal room. The room stored the belongings for every intern who ever died here.

"Some of the boxes actually have the remains of their intern. It all depends on how they died," Chad admitted.

"That's insane." I didn't want to believe anything he had been telling me.

"No it's not. Where else are they supposed to go? This has always been their home. It's always been our home. I sometimes think we're destined to be interns from the beginning."

"I don't care what you think. I know that I wasn't always going to end up here." I could sense myself getting angry with him. I didn't want my life to have been fated from the beginning. I wanted to believe I had a choice.

* * *

But now as I am being absorbed into station management, I know Chad was right all along. We were picked from the beginning. Made and raised just to become part of the station. I'm learning so much right now as my body is slowly becoming one with the station.

Oh… everything is making sense now… I understand… why… who… what…

Cecil… he… oh, so that's how…

Chad… he's... my brother? He's gone too. Just five minutes ago… It was his fate, as this is mine.

It must begin…

* * *

**A/N: So I hope you like it. Next is Chad. They died in the same episode but I think I wrote Jerry's story better than Chad's so I put him first. Reviews are welcome. **

**-Rachel**


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